#3 Our Deepest Wound Is Our Healing Work In The World: For Life AND Choice

*Trigger warning: my story includes rape. Take care of yourself.

My Rogue Sisters and I spent a couple hours together on a sunny spring day. We walked to a wildish park and settled upon a grassy knoll. We talked about our lives and what we are learning. We connected over our experiences as women and deeply listened to each other.

One Sister is a budding herbalist, learning the ancient art of plant medicine passed down from woman to woman through the generations. She told us about Cramp Bark, a plant used to help a woman carry her baby to term if she is having issues. She also mentioned, there are a myriad of plants used through the ages by women to cause a miscarriage, when the woman chooses to do so.

Through the centuries, women have been under the hierarchical control of men. This patriarchy necessitated women to find other ways to have agency over their very own bodies. My Herbalist Sister went on to tell us that during the enslavement of African Americans, the slave masters raped their female slaves. This was done, in part, to increase their “stock”, especially after the slave trade was officially outlawed. I’ve also read the slave master picked which male would impregnate which female, to create the best “stock” possible, just like animal husbandry.

Just sit with that for a few breaths…

Frequently, the impregnated, enslaved women would venture into the wild, to find the plant they needed to bring about a miscarriage. Of course they would. Why wouldn’t they? Their babies were not their own. Their babies would share the same fate as them. The slave masters were wise to this trick, so they would force the women to drink Cramp Bark to ensure the birth of their slave baby.

As I shared in this post, I was conceived by date rape.

None of the ancient plant medicine wisdom was available to my mother through her female line. I suppose it had been erased somewhere along the way. Abortion was not yet legal. My mother felt adoption was not right for her. She had no support from her parents other than to marry my father. Single mothers were not common then. That choice would have taken a lot of strength and confidence. Going against the social and Christian norms, was not possible for my mother. Above all, she was a good Christian girl. She was trained to obey her parents. The implicit message was that she was the guilty party. This burden laid heavily upon her shoulders.

Nothing happened to my father. No consequences came for his actions, except to get married. No other male stood up to him, as far as I know. No one reprimanded him for his actions. No one shamed him. No one confronted him. No one reported him to the police.

Not one “Christian man” did or said a damn thing about my father’s reprehensible behavior. Instead, he was rewarded for his behavior with my mother.

Just sit with that for a few breaths…

And here’s a little nugget from the Bible’s Old Testament, in the book of Deuteronomy 22:28-29, NIV: “28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

Where in the Bible does it say NOT to rape?

My mother’s rape was “discovered” because my mother was pregnant with me. As far as I know, my father did not pay my grandfather any money, but my grandfather did give my mother to him for marriage. My mother had no agency in the family and Christian sub-culture of her time.

Misogyny: the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

Patriarchy: a system of society or government where men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.

Both brought trauma and harm, which has rippled out through the generations. Shaping my mother’s life. Shaping my life.

Believe me, I have spent countless hours pondering my feelings, understanding and thoughts around my origin story and abortion. I was innocent and yet I absorbed all the stress hormones of my mother, while in her womb. Her despair. Her agony. Her suicidal ideation. After I was born, I absorbed my parent’s violent words, aggression and contempt for one another for 19 years until I moved out. Even as a young adult, I had no boundaries with them and often experienced the continued violence between them. A deep impact of anxiety and depression stemmed from all of this. A sense of enmeshment with my mother was my only survival. A she could not love me as I needed to be loved.

For years, steeped in a conservative Christian ideology, I identified as pro-life, until my mother passed away. A few years before her death, I began to notice her decline due to the years of trauma she experienced. She isolated, pushing friends and family away. She wrapped herself in magical thinking, which was a sect of Christianity called the ‘health, wealth & prosperity gospel’. This is a belief that all Christians should be healthy, wealthy and prosperous, if only they have enough faith. All the while, a subtle undercurrent of bitterness and resentment consumed my mother’s body, bringing about disease and finally her early death at 72. I watched all of this, with confusion, not yet able to see the clear picture of how it all connected.

I was shocked when my grandmother, my mother’s mother, told me she was pro-choice one day. I was in my 30’s with four daughters. She was a devout, conservative Christian woman. This did not fit. I reminded her that if abortion had been legal, I would probably not be here.

“I know” she answered, “but a woman should be able to choose.”

I wonder now is she felt guilty for what she and her husband, my grandfather, had forced upon their daughter.

“You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. You marry who you date,” my grandmother told my mother. “You will not bring an illegitimate child into my home” her father shouted.

My grandparents never liked my father, but treated him with polite tolerance. I wonder, if over the years, my grandmother realized the harm done to her daughter by forcing her to marry the man who had raped her on their first date and the man who raped her again shortly after my birth. This was my brother’s conception. Marital rape was only outlawed in the USA in 1976. I wonder if she regretted her own words. I wonder if she too witnessed the slow death of my mother. At the time, I could not understand my grandmother. She felt like an enigma.

Recently, I remembered her telling me: “If women could pursue their dreams, I’d probably be an anthropologist.”

She too was caught in this system. With each passing year, I understand more. I watched my gorgeous, talented, gifted mother whither away from deep, unresolved, complex trauma.

I learned from my mother’s life and death, how to LIVE.

After years of my own personal trauma healing, I am so joyful that I exist AND I grieve my mother’s life. Her suffering. Her internalized patriarchy and misogyny. Her spiritual trauma. Her emotional abuse. Her psychological damage. For the longest time, I could not see it. I deeply regret that I didn’t know then what I know now.

Trauma, according to Dr. Peter Levine, is not what happens to us. It is what happens inside of us when we have no empathetic supportive witness. Eleven years after her death, I am my mother’s witness.

I am for life AND for choice. The two are not mutually exclusive. To have life, we must also have choice.

I am for human flourishing. I want fullness of life for everyone, especially those who are oppressed: women, LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, trans-women and men, people stuck in generational poverty, abused children, single mothers, those caught in the incarceration system, those on death row, and for our planet. Truly, the list is long.

The only way to give this kind of life is to also give choice. Choice allows the means to have agency over your body. Choice allows the means to simply exist in peace just as you are, as your authentic self. Choice allows the means to transition, to not be abused physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Choice allows the means to be forgiven and heal from past harmful behaviors. Choice allows the means to honor our sacred Earth and stop destroying our planet. The list goes on and on.

Choice is the means to LOVE.

I am grateful to be alive, to grow and learn AND I lament that my mother felt she had no choice.